After failing twice at suicide, Jesus met him. Now he’s preaching the gospel along the Old Silk Road. He doesn’t shout or draw attention to himself, because God is working with him. The results are just what you would expect from an all-loving, all-powerful God.  

Sorry, we cannot show pictures of the principal persons involved, and the names of people and places in this document have either been changed or left deliberately vague for security reasons. This is the first of a two-part story.  

Failure at suicide

Abaza is an Ottoman Turk living in Bulgaria. There are 500,000 Turks living in Bulgaria. He grew up in a Muslim family, though he was not a fervent Muslim. After he was grown, he married a lovely Bulgarian Muslim wife, Melisa.

After the communist collapse in Bulgaria he became very depressed. Searching for meaning in life, he looked for a Bible, but a voice seemed to tell him, “You don’t need that,” and he quit looking. By 1991 he had grown so depressed he decided to end his angst by committing suicide.

He swam out into deep water in a lake and tried to drown himself. As he sank toward the bottom a force seemed to push him back to the surface. He went down a second time, and again some force propelled him back to the surface. After four or five tries, he quit trying, and swam back to shore.

But still his depression remained. Then working for an electrical contractor, he thought of a better way to commit suicide. He would stick two wires into a 240-volt outlet at work, grab hold of the other ends, and he would be instantly fried. A brief shock, and it would be over, he figured. He stuck the wires in the outlet, but when he picked up the other ends, the shock sent him hurtling 30 feet backwards. And he was still alive!

But he could not fully comprehend what he was reading. And instead of things getting better, he suddenly got seriously sick.

“I’m numb all over,” he told Melisa. “I can’t feel a thing.”

Melisa called a friend, who put him on a bus and took him to the emergency room. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong and didn’t know how to treat him. Abaza remembered all the things he had done in his life and was sure he would die and go to hell. Suddenly it felt like his soul was trying to leave his body, and he held on for dear life. They were all very scared.

Finally Melisa asked him, “Why don’t you give your problem to Jesus.”

Abaza cried out, “Jesus, if you are the real God, please take away my sins.”

Immediately a sense of wellbeing settled over him from head to foot, and feeling started to return to his body.

Astounded, he cried out, “Jesus, now I know you are the real God, and I give my life to you.”

Melisa rejoiced. There was gladness in the camp. Abaza was released, and began devouring the Bible.

Abaza’s training

This time it ministered to his soul. He sensed a burden to help others find Christ, and started sharing his faith with others personally.

Abaza soon realized he should get some Bible training. First, in 1992, he went to a Bible school operated by the Assemblies of God. It was located in Romania, but soon relocated in Bulgaria. The school offered two weeks of classes followed by two weeks of field work. Abaza participated in this cycle for four years and graduated in 1996.

While yet in training, Abaza planted a church in a town located about half-way between Sofia and Burgas. One night in 1993 he had a dream about trekking the Old Silk Road. In the dream he saw himself going out and being followed by a large number of people. He sensed he would soon be carrying the gospel to people along the Old Silk Road, and that many would find Christ as a result. Some 200 million Turks live in countries the trade route passes through, with only about 250,000 believers (0.1%) among them.

That ancient trade route, made famous by Marco Polo in the 13^th century, stretches all the way from Ürümqi in Xianjiang Province in western China to Sophia in Bulgaria. From there the silk and spices the merchants brought from the East were sold or traded and carried throughout Europe. Though evidence of Chinese goods reaching Egypt is found as early as 4,000 years before Christ, strong trade with the West was not developed until Roman times.

Shortly after this he was in a prayer meeting and another believer prophesied, “You are going to go out, and a lot of people will follow you.” The call was confirmed. Abaza knew God’s will for his life. Next came the implementation.

Beginning ministry

Four months later an OM worker from America, who had been working in Turkey, came to him and asked, “Can you go with me to evangelize along the Old Silk Road? You speak Russian and Turkish, as well as Bulgarian. You will be very helpful to us.”

Abaza leapt at the chance and gathered nine people to go with them. They divided into three teams: Two went to Kazakhstan, two to Kyrgyzstan, and Abaza and five others, including some Koreans, went to Uzbekistan.

They flew there for a two-week visit. In one village Abaza personally invited 17 people to come and watch the “Jesus” film in a house. None came, but Abaza felt he and his team members were being led by the Holy Spirit.

One day a woman came up to him on the street and talked for only two minutes, then turned away. She was a believer, but was afraid she would be found out. Uzbekistan is governed by a strongman who does not tolerate evangelicals. She had wanted to meet a man from Bulgaria, because several of her family members had married Bulgarians.

A student from Azerbaijan was studying in Uzbekistan. Abaza gave him a Bible. The young man was very excited and went to his room. The next day he told Abaza he had read through the four Gospels. “I could see he had a great interest in reading the Bible,” Abaza said later.

In Uzbekistan a permit is required in order to buy or sell anything in the marketplace. Of course, the visitors didn’t have any permit, and so couldn’t even buy food for themselves. While he was standing in the marketplace, another woman came up to him and said, “I see you are not able to buy anything. Let me help you.” Abaza saw she was a local with the necessary permit. So he gave her some money, and the woman bought everything the group needed.

After Abaza received the goods, he said, “Thank you,” and gave her a Bible. Her eyes went wide open. “Oh, I was praying for 10 copies of this book,” she said in amazement.

“Where do you live?” Abaza asked. She told him, and the next day the group went to visit her. Abaza brought along the last two copies of the Bible he had with him. When he got her house, she said, “Everyone loves this book. I have two more people who want to buy a copy.”

The next day they flew back to Bulgaria. The seed was sown among the people and Abaza was hooked as a missionary. Abaza does not know how much fruit has grown from it. At the time Uzbekistan had about 500 underground believers.

Ministry develops

 

In 1996 he went to Kazakhstan. There he met a lady and her husband who were believers. She hosted a meeting in their house and told her husband, “Go invite all the imams you can.”

Thirty-three people came, and 23 of these were imams (Muslim clergy). They heard the gospel, saw the “Jesus” film, and even witnessed miracles with their own eyes: God delivered a man from demons, and two drug dealers and two women were saved.

But still the imams did not believe. Even so, that family’s house became a house church. Abaza has been back to Kazakhstan nine more times and has planted six churches there.

In 1998 he went to Kyrgyzstan. He has since planted two churches there.

In 2000 he took his family to the Crimea area of Ukraine and worked among the Tatar Turks for four years. God worked in wonderful ways. 

This is only the beginning. Abaza continued to take the gospel to Turks wherever they lived: Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Greece, Crimea, as well as the “stan” lands of Central Asia. Please see the rest of the story: “Miracles Along the Old Silk Road,” scheduled for release on March 5, 2009.